Jeffrey D. Sadow is an associate professor of political science at Louisiana State University Shreveport. If you're an elected official, political operative or anyone else upset at his views, don't go bothering LSUS or LSU System officials about that because these are his own views solely.
This publishes five days weekly with the exception of 7 holidays. Also check out his Louisiana Legislature Log especially during legislative sessions (in "Louisiana Politics Blog Roll" below).

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27.6.13

As the state's fiscal years concludes, again one must wonder whether the penchant for the group of budget reformers known as the “fiscal
hawks” to put style over substance is going to lead to worse fiscal problems
for Louisiana.

The “hawks,” who forged an identity by declaring jihad against “one-time money,” or recurring funds collected from
sources outside of the state general fund and nonrecurring money from things
like asset sales and legal settlements, made the use of a tax amnesty program as
the centerpiece of a plan to wash away a lot of one-time money from the
recently-passed budget for the upcoming fiscal year. This was despite the irony
and hypocrisy that amnesty
proceeds either were nonrecurring in nature or one-time money themselves.

Of greater concern, and richer in both irony and hypocrisy, is that the
use of amnesty now is defended on the basis of it being a more “stable” funding
that will hit the $200 million mark inserted into the budget. This notion fails
both conceptually and quantitatively, with history showing in fact the state is
unlikely to collect that much this year (this is supposed to be drawn out over
almost three years).

As a result of the 2012 elections, the decision about the presidency was
forced more onto Jindal. There would be no GOP incumbent running in 2016 so he
either has to go all in now or not at all. But that means his next opportunity
could be as far away as 2024, which would make for him sitting out nine years
unless he finagled a cabinet slot in a GOP presidency if that chance presented
itself – out of sight, out of mind is not a good recipe to win the White House.
And with his uncertain prospects for a 2016 nomination, only the Senate
provides a quick opportunity as he would have to wait until 2019 to run for
governor again because of term limits and probably would face an incumbent for
a difficult comeback.

25.6.13

While threats of a veto override session may ring in the air from a
relatively wide swath of legislators, even increased chances this year of one occurring
mean instead of being extremely unlikely to happen, it’s merely very unlikely
to occur.

The Constitution
provides for an automatic override session held by the Legislature, unless a
majority of members in at least one chamber calls it off by sending in a ballot
to their presiding officer stating as such within 35 days after the end of the
regular session. This never has happened in the four decades under this version
of the Constitution.

Two factors tend to discourage the impulse to have one of these
sessions. One is the override requirement of two-thirds majorities in each
chamber. With just a pair of vetoes ever overridden during regular sessions in
these 40 years, governors have shown they have figured out when to cast vetoes
that stick because of the extra votes needed beyond passage or those needed that
allow an override session to happen. So even as it matters to have a majority wishing
to override vetoes, unless they know they can pull in additional supporters for
the override votes that are unlikely to come from those who sent in ballots to
cancel the thing, having an extra session is useless.

24.6.13

Supporters of a new independent school district in southeastern East
Baton Rouge Parish figure perhaps the third time is that charm in upping their ante
by exploring
the possibility of creating a new municipality, which may create desirable
ripple effects beyond just that objective

In 2011, advocates of district creation first tried but failed to get
the Legislature to do so. To do this, two things must happen: a law must define
the district and its governance structure, and the Constitution must be amended
to include it in the Minimum Foundation Program for funding. This year, they
got halfway by getting
the law passed, but the amendment, which requires a two-thirds majority in
each legislative chamber and then an affirmative vote of the state’s people, didn’t get to a
vote in the House after the Senate moved it on.

Some legislators publicly stated they had qualms about doing the unprecedented
act of dividing a district built around a single local governing unit.
While most local school districts in the state have the same boundaries as
parishes, the few that don’t either have boundaries coterminous with municipalities
or with parishes minus those districts built around municipalities in that
parish. The same issue had arisen in the early 2000s with the desire to create
the Central Community School System. After some failed attempts to get the district
established, the city of Central was created, and the district passed
legislative muster two years later.

23.6.13

Unfortunately, caught in the crossfire of budgetary struggling between
the Gov. Bobby
Jindal Administration and the Legislature is funding for several programs
dealing with the developmentally disabled, and regardless that one institution
remains more culpable than the other, some potential progress on increased service
provision likely is lost as a result.

With Monday being the deadline for gubernatorial decisions on regular
and line-item vetoes for legislation passed late in the 2013 regular session,
on Friday Jindal announced line-item vetoes for the state’s operating budget HB
1. Although altogether they totaled about $6 million, they involved more
than half of all such vetoes cast.

These vetoes were of five kinds. One set, totaling $950,000, excised
money from each of the nine human service districts that was earmarked to fund
Individual and Family Support Programs, which provide assistance not available
from any other of the several other Department of Health and Hospitals programs
to help people with developmental disabilities to live in their own homes or
with their families in their own community. Another set removed the addition of
200 New Opportunity Waiver slots (which would create a recurring annual
commitment of around $25,600 per slot) to allow for the same.

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